


Guardians

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Implied Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 03:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12673722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Ignis was not a man sworn to honour. He was sworn to protect Noctis.





	Guardians

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JazzRaft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/gifts).



He may have been told from an early age to look after Noctis; to help him with his studies and his role, to guide his path and learn just as much from King Regis as the prince. But Ignis was not raised to be a man of honour, like Gladiolus and his family. He was not raised to be a Shield or a weapon, or any of the other important roles to Noctis and the Crown. He was raised as a companion, as an adviser and a friend to his prince. 

He was raised to love Noctis. 

And that is exactly what he had done. 

He had just come from the hospital, where Gladio was still being tended. Where Noct was waiting under the care of the Amicitia family in hard plastic chairs and cramped waiting rooms for the second day in a row. Where the little family, huddled together like wounded wolves in the cold, waited for news of their own. He had made sure Noct ate something that didn’t come from a vending machine— smiled as Iris and Noct shared the warm dinner he had delivered in colourful plastic containers from home. He had spoken quietly with Clarus to get the latest update, had brought them all warm drinks from the passable cafe in the hospital lobby. 

Ignis was certain that Gladio would not lose his eye. 

He couldn’t say the same for the drunk who had started the fight. 

Who had bolted at the sight of blood. Who had disappeared into the mess of the city layers before the city police and the Crownsguard could descend on the establishment to rush Noct and Gladio away.

The investigation was ongoing.

Ignis hadn’t been granted access to the security footage, but he had seen it all the same. He hadn’t been privy to the first reports and the first lists of names to track, but the details were easy to come by. It was only a matter of reading the preliminary reports while he waited for the little dinner he had made— a warm shepherds’ pie, spiced the way Noct liked it— to cool enough to place in the container. 

No one paid him any mind when they thought he was training to be a chamberlain. 

It took three hours to find the drunk. 

Three hours that Ignis knew Noct had spent fretting with the Amicitia family. Three hours waiting for updates and the promise of good news. 

It had been just over forty-eight hours since the incident. And the police were still investigating what Ignis had found while taking a short walk and asking simple questions. 

The city had opened up around him when he asked about the incident. The layers most of the upstanding citizens avoided peeled back for him, and he found the man in another bar. In another street. In another district. One that would bring far too much bad blood into the media and military if the rumours that the drunk was sheltered in the underbelly of the refugee districts. 

Ignis caught him as he stumbled out from the bar an hour before closing. As he alternated between slurred song and absent humming with the beat of the clubs music around them. As he tripped over his own feet and practically into Ignis’ waiting arms. 

When the man stumbled, it was easy to pull him back into the long alley, to push him back against the rough brick wall where the stone was chipping from lack of care. Where the lights had dimmed because no one wandered down dark alleys if they were smart, and therefore no one needed to replace the dying bulbs if there was no need. The picture copied from the reports was all Ignis needed to confirm. 

The babbled answers steeped in anti-Crown sentiment mixed with drunken thrown punches that were easy to avoid were all the justification he needed. 

Half a city away, Noctis was letting guilt and worry eat away at him as he waited with a friend’s family in a sterile hospital. Noctis had spent the past forty-eight hours sobered up and scared, apologising for putting Gladio in that position, for wanting to explore some of his city, for straying from the safe routes and habits of bright and lively arcades and fast food places.

And the man swaying under Ignis’ gloved hand had spent that same time getting drunk. Sleeping. Bragging about pulling a knife on some stuck up little rich brat from centretown. Bragging about threatening the prince. 

Threatening Noct. 

Ignis was not raised to be a man of honour like Gladio. He had sworn no oaths to uphold the sanctity and reputation of the Crown or throne. He had made no grand promises like a knight in one of the stories he used to read to Noct when the darkness of the night and the imagined monsters got to be too much. 

His promises were all to Noct. And to Noct alone. Not as his prince, but as his friend.

Ignis almost wished that the alcohol wouldn’t have dulled the man’s senses so much. That the small, delicate knife he had carried with him did more damage. 

The world outside of the little alleyway was getting brighter, the day fighting to break through the haze of anger and rage. The streets beyond the mouth of this little cave were getting busier, with more people wandering to and from home and work. With the threat of trash collection looming over the narrow little alley.

And all Ignis had left was a body that he didn’t know what to do with. And the foreign pulse of life from the district he had slipped into. 

He realised too late that he hadn’t planned this far ahead. 

He wondered what Noct would say when he found out. If he would be disappointed or shocked. If Noct would defend him, as he had over the small, stupid transgressions of childhood. If Noct would leave him to his fate, distanced as was honourable. 

Ignis didn’t realise that he wasn’t alone until his knife was being wrested from his hand. Until there were calming words spoken to him that he couldn’t focus on, because all he thought of was the fear that Noct would be forced to abandon him now. 

“Hey, easy,” the voice was familiar— calm, certain— and Ignis recognised Nyx from the late afternoons the Glaive spent curled with Noct on the sofa back at the apartment. From the years of working in tandem for the protection of the prince. From his disapproving remarks at Noct’s choice in boyfriends. “Let go, Ignis.”

It was the nickname that cut through it all, the confident smile and the little hint of darkness. 

Ignis realised just how foolish he had been. “I— Nyx— He—”

“I got this, Ignis. Don’t worry.” The Glaive looked over the body in the dark with a critical eye. “Get home to Noct, okay? I’ll take care of this.” 

“He was the one who—”

“I know, Specs,” it was the nickname that shocked him out of his stupor, the confident smirk that brought him back to himself. Nyx pushed up the sleeves of his sweater, and Ignis realised for the first time that the Glaive was in civilian clothes— that he had seen that same sweater throughout his hunt. Nyx had been following him. “And I got this part. Look after Noct.”

Ignis nodded dumbly, feeling like a child for the first time in years. He had been careful. He had chosen something quick, fast, clean. But his plan had been flawed. He hadn’t accounted for the Glaives on the street, blending in far easier than the disciplined Guard. He was halfway to Noct’s apartment when he got the phone call that Gladio was awake and could have visitors. 

When he next saw Nyx, it was on Noct’s couch. The Glaive was curled around Noct as the prince played some new game, refusing to be distracted by soft smiles and playful touches. They shared a quick greeting, indifferent rather than disapproving, and Ignis started on dinner as Nyx confirmed that he was staying. 

It was months before any body was found. An old complex on the Western edge of the city, derelict and ready to be rebuilt, had crumbled around the remains. That had been weeks after Ignis had been invited into the Glaive; asked to keep his spot by Noct’s side, but with a new training regiment. A new skillset.


End file.
